


Splitting the Bean

by kayliemalinza



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
Genre: Character Death Fix, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-26
Updated: 2007-05-26
Packaged: 2017-10-27 08:18:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayliemalinza/pseuds/kayliemalinza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the strong tradition of revisionist fanfiction, I present to you a fix-it fic. To say anything else is too spoilery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Splitting the Bean

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for AWE.

From inside, the body bag was soft and wrinkled like a bean skin. Water was a sliding ribbon in his throat and bowels. It licked the slit between his ribs as if it was as natural as the crease of his bottom, or the space between his lips and teeth.

James had been drifting like this for some time. He knew very little of heaven and hell, unless heaven was the snapping of a sail in brisk wind and hell the stench and closeness of the bilges, but he felt sure this existence could be neither. It was too peaceful to be Purgatory, and James was not an infant, dead before baptism. He had heard the word of God and turned away; this could not be Limbo.

Insistence tickled in his ear: "You pray to me now, sailor, and learn from verses writ in scattered bones."

 _Take me elsewhere that I may do that, madame,_ thought James, for it was a female sense.

"I cannot take you onward. That be another's job, and he be surely busy at the moment, ferrying on centuries of abandoned souls. You be one of the very latest; he won't ferry you for some time."

 _Charon?_ thought James.

The ocean chuckled at him. "He ferried himself over centuries ago. Someone took his place, and another person his. I see you are a learned man, James Norrington."

 _Not so learned_ , thought James, _if I worshiped Christ and never you._

"You know that to be untrue, just as you know that Death is no injustice. And that is why I take you back."

James had no thought to that before the water tugged unkindly at his wound and he was rushing backwards and upwards, subject to the weight of air again, slathering the canvas shroud against his face. Then it slithered open and he saw the sky. The sea slapped laughter on his skin.

"You lived a man's life before, James Norrington. Now live again and be a legend."

James opened his mouth and breathed the sunlight.


End file.
